BV Capital

Company Description: Originally developed in Germany, Travian.com’s Chinese version, travian.cn, has quickly took off in the first half of 2007 in China. Players of this massive-multiplayer strategy game begin as tribal chiefs and are given resources to cultivate a village and develop a strong citizenry of farmers, soldiers, traders and government officials. Other Travian.cn players with whom it is necessary to develop alliances, build surrounding “towns”. Chiefs can be diplomatic in their interactions and seek to form partnerships or take a more aggressive approach and try to conquer other villages. Either way, the goal is the same: build your village to a sustainable and powerful force and eventually conquer the world.

Since its launch in China around January 2007, the site has had a rapid rise in Alexa rankings, illustrating its popularity. The game is available in multiple languages each of which operates in a different domain (German- travian.de, English- travian.us, Chinese- travian.cn, etc). Each language operates in its own “world”. There is no software to download so the game can be accessed anywhere there is an internet connection- a high selling point given relatively few Chinese own PCs and spend hours in Internet Cafes tooling away on the web and gaming. The site currently has nearly 100K registered users of whom 92,000 are active gamers.

A recent rapid growth in traffic can be attributed to a popular competition sponsored by the company going on from July 15th - August 15th. Travian has asked users to create materials about Travian.cn that creatively depicts the site in any format: text, audio, video, photos, etc.. All users have the opportunity to vote for their favorites and the top 10 will be used as actual marketing/PR materials for the site. The top prize is a Nintendo Wii. Not a bad way to cut overhead costs.